


Radio Activity

by lortapttub (buttpatrol)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Bittersweet, Hedonism, Multi, Problems, Self-Destruction, Sexual Content, Substance Abuse, sad content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6799615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttpatrol/pseuds/lortapttub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompt smuttier than my usual fare, mostly written for friends.</p><p>06/06/16-  Fusion: Jacobi tries to tempt Eiffel with all his favourite vices</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Decay

**Author's Note:**

> As part of the great porn-prompt fest of 2016. Unbeta’d af. Minkowski/Eiffel/Lovelace- “An act of defiance”, for @harpers-mirror  
> aka THE BLEAKEST THING I HAVE EVER WROTE

There is things they don’t tell you about being a survivor. He didn’t know. Lovelace knew, never told him that it was going to be alright, that they’d be okay. She knew. How it feels to be the one left behind. When your AI, your former crush, your most trustworthy friend is missing, when there is a grave, with some unfamiliar Russian name on it and they tell you it is your doctor, your almost murderer.

They survived. There is things they don’t tell you about surviving, that it implies that in your situation others haven’t.

Koudelka’s funeral is on a Monday, on a mild spring day, when the temperature is just warm enough that you can hear the dripping, melting of ice from inside the church.

The next week, Lovelace and Eiffel drive over with a bottle of wine, and Chinese take-out.

“Fisher was big on this kind of thing,” she says, “I think his upbringing was a little rough. Don’t apologise, don’t placate. That shit doesn’t stand in a storm. Hold on to your loved ones, and hold on to your asses, or else you drown.”

“So this is us holding on to our collective asses?” Eiffel says, looking out the passenger window. His stomach feels twisted and sour, and the sun is giving him a headache

“Yup. Though what did he really know about staying alive. Not enough,” she looks up, as if she could somehow see wolf 359 through the painfully bright white-blue of the sky.

All the lights are off at Minkowski’s apartment, and the shades are drawn. He somehow expected it to be a mess, dirty dishes and forgotten clothes, like his apartment when he is not dealing with something well (Who is he kidding? That description could basically apply to his entire adult life). Instead is almost frighteningly neat. Like no one was living there at all.

 

The wine ends up being ignored. Minkowski and Eiffel do not feel up to it, and if Lovelace minds she doesn’t say so. They eat the take-out, and make small talk. Music plays form the stereo and no one mentions that it isn’t Gilbert and Sullivan, isn’t even a musical. Eiffel wasn’t aware that the commander had tastes in musical beyond pomp-filled operatic numbers, and show tunes.

No one told him that surviving meant living with the ghosts of everyone who didn’t. Trying to fill the relationship gaps of those that are gone, and suddenly it’s the middle of the night and Eiffel has accidently called Minkowski “Renee” twice. She is half way through teasing him, in a warm patient tone that isn’t her own, when they realise what’s happening. That they are somehow trying to live for those who don’t. To fill the love that each other is missing in their lives.

Minkowski sighs, raggedly, “How’d the hell do you live with this?” she asks Lovelace who sits has been sitting still as a stone throughout their odd playful banter.

Lovelace shrugs, “You just keep waking up. Wake up, find something or someone to fight until you are tired enough to sleep again.”

There is lots to fight against, to get mad at. Even someone with Doug Eiffel’s virulent sense of self-worth can see the enormity and breadth of what they have gone through, the unfairness. Everything that Goddard _hasn’t_ taken away from him is sitting in this too-clean apartment, around this table.

 

 

It happens without them knowing exactly why or how. Maybe it is a way to give each other what they don’t think they deserve for themselves. Maybe it’s holding tight to what they have left. Maybe it’s outrunning just for a few hours the hollow echoing trauma that will be branded into their minds and their bodies for the rest of their life. And maybe, in Lovelace’s case, it’s a fight, and act of defiance against everyone who had turn their lives into a war-zone.

So she takes the lead, and Eiffel and Minkowski lean into her like it’s a relief. Like touching them reminds them that they are real. The music is off now, and the light most comes from the street lights and from the TV, which has gone off the air for the night and whose colour test pattern painted the room in a strange kaleidoscopic light.

They undress, fabric rustling and belts unbuckling and its oddly formal right up until the moment it’s _not_ , when it is _skin_ , and _mouths_ , and holding steady. Lovelace braces Eiffel, her hand’s on his shoulders, sitting behind him, and Minkowski lowers herself on his lap and—

Then they are moving. He can hear his own heart beating so loud, and the sound of their breath as they move in time. The momentum builds, and Lovelace leans over him, to bite gently at Minkowski’s bottom lip and– Is this how the star felt? Going nova? Burning from the inside out. He makes a sound half-way between a cry and a groan and—

For second there is no Doug Eiffel. No personal tragedy executed in a grand scale, inch by inch, over the past three years of his life. Hipbones bump each other, can feel Lovelace body pressing behind him, and the contour of Minkowski back under his hands and—

And his is unmade. Everything in his mind goes hot, bright and white.

And then he finds himself again. A mess, and breathing heavy, and tucked in the arms of these women. Minkowski shudders violently, tightening around him before going still as well.

And then there is silence again.

At least until, Lovelace says “My turn,” and he meets Minkowski eyes and she half smiles and shrugs. This is not the best coping method but it’s what they have, at least for tonight. She gamely kneels between Lovelace’s legs as Eiffel repositions himself.

This is what they have. This is where they get to make new things. And in a way, this is surviving too.


	2. Fusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For AcidTygr/Station_Oracle, who wanted Jacobi/Eiffel + smoking

Doug Eiffel leaned back in his chair, headphones sitting crookedly on his head as he listened to the universe. Today it sounded like cosmic background radiation, which sounded like static. No good time oldies, No spooky audio doppelgangers.

Outside the small window Wolf 359 glowed. If he ignored the pale blue, he could pretend that nothing had changed, that it was communications officer-y business as usual. Just a guy and the white noise of the universe.

“Hey, Officer Eiffel.”

He suppressed a wince, pulling the headset off to dangle around his neck. “Jacobi.”

The demolitions expert floated into view, “Aw. You don’t need to sound so worried. I am on my rest period. This social call is purely recreational.”

“That doesn’t actually put me at ease.” Eiffel said, resisting the urge to put some space between him and the other officer, “So far your idea of recreation has mostly involved plastic explosives.”

“Nah man, I have other hobbies, I’m super multi-dimensional.” Jacobi sat directly on the communications officer, his knees bumping Eiffel’s. “This is a bonding opportunity. Here, present.”

He dropped a small canvas bag emblemized by the slick black Goddard Futuristics logo in Eiffel’s lap.

“Um.”

“It’s not a bomb.”

“So far Goddard’s gifts to me have consistent of an overly long staycation in deep space and a retrovirus that causes organ failure, so forgive me if I am a little apprehensive.”

“No fun. Look we did actually listen your log and the psych evals. I believe you had a list of things you missed most from earth?”

Eiffel looked from the bag to Jacobi and back again, stricken.

Jacobi laughed, “Well it’s not pizza, monster trucks or video on demand.”

“Er, there were other things on that list that—“

“Just open it.” Jacobi interrupted impatient.

Eiffel loosened the string on the bag. There were small objects inside, but his eye was immediately drawn to the white and green box of Newports. Eiffel took a deep breath reflexively, “I thought you said you didn’t get me explosives.”

“It’s a trust exercise.” Jacobi grinned. “We play games like this all the time on the Urania. Here, Let me see.”

He plucked the small carton form the bag, and pulled a slender cigarette from it. “So the thing about fire is it needs three things to survive. Fuel, heat” he pulled a silver zippo monogramed with the letters W.K on it, “and oxygen”

A deft flick and he was pressing the end of the cigarette to the flame, and inhaled, “The Hephaestus only has a finite amount of oxygen. Its working 24/7 to reclaim oxygen from the carbon dioxide we breathe out.” Another drag. Eiffel shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Combustion fires, unlike chemical fires, need oxygen to stay burning. This little stick is stealing the limited amount of air we have from our lungs. But oxygen is really very flammable. Too much oxygen, let’s say Hera has the station a little bit oxygen rich today—“

He flicks the lighter open again, and a ball of flame appeared.

Eiffel flinched

“Boom” Jacobi grinned predatorily. “See, I do explosions for a living. You just have to trust that I have done the math, and we aren’t about to be cremated”

He passed the cigarette towards Eiffel.

“I-I’ve quit.”

“Since when?”

“I have been in space for years, several months of which were spent in a tin can the size of a sedan. It’s been hard to pop down to the nearest gas station and pick up a carton. Also my lungs are already malignant lumps of diseased flesh vis a vis Decima. So yeah. Pass.”

Jacobi shrugged, “That just sounds like nothing left to lose to me. Oh well, can I interest you in some blackjack and beer?”

Eiffel examined a silver foiled packet. “This is beer?”

“Zero gravity doesn’t lend itself well to a six-pack,” Jacobi admitted “The experience does lose something through a sippy straw.”

Eiffel tentatively poked the straw into the package. It tasted bitter, yeasty and familiar.

“I think we are alike.”

“Me and you?” Eiffel asked skeptically.

“Us hedonists, yeah” Jacobi nodded, shuffling the cards. “We appreciate the things that destroy us. No offense but Minkowski has the sense of fun of a Summer Camp Counselor. Lovelace won’t trust herself to let go. Hilbert is, well, Hilbert”

“Hera is fun,” Eiffel defended.

“Hera doesn’t have a body,” Jacobi returned, scooting forward to the edge of the console, his knees now framing Eiffel’s.

There is an unspoken question hanging here, even Eiffel can see it. He can move away, stop this, go back to listening to static, or he can say yes.

He, of course, takes the most Eiffelian route and completely deflected the question, changed the subject “So there is no Tequila hidden in this bag?”

“Nope,” a flash of teeth, “But there is some in my bunk.”

Eiffel considered this. This is a bad idea. A Bad Idea. This is just the escalation of the cold war between the Hephaestus and the Urania crew members. Some new weird game that can only end in tears.

On the other hand, it had been _a while_.

Eiffel followed Jacobi out of communications booth out to where the station and the Urania joined. Jacobi winked at the glittering dark glass of the stations cameras, before pushing Eiffel threw the door

—

Smoke and perfect amber drops of tequila hung suspended in the air.

“The trick to a zero gravity shot, is do it fast, and keep the glass moving, so the alcohol stays in the glass. Down the hatch”

In tandem they threw back the glasses.

Eiffel’s eyes stung, “Oh boy, This is not smooth.”

Jacobi laughed, as he unscrewed the cap of the bottle again, quickly measuring out two more shots . “I am a cheap thrills kind of guy. What will we drink to?”

“What?”

“We should toast to something.”

“To earthly delights?”

“To lungs full of smoke.”

Eiffel half laughed and looked away.

They drank.

Jacobi slid another Newport out of its box, foil crinkling. “Still scared to try one again?”

The clink of the zippo, and the cigarette was alight. The tip glowed red in the low light of Jacobi’s cabin, like a star hung in space.

“Scared I won’t be able to have to try _just_ one.” Eiffel admitted, pouring the next two shots. “Scared it will take another few days off the shelf life of my lungs. To pizza”

“What?”

“Next shot. To pizza”

“Hah, to rich, dark chocolate.”

They drink.

“Oh boy. I am going to feel this in the morning.” Eiffel winces as the liquid slides down his throat.

Jacobi leans back against the bulkhead. “That why science invented IV bags. Flush that hangover right out of you. What if we shotgunned it?”

“The beer? Or the Tequila? Also I am pretty sure that is _not_ why they invented IV bags? Either that or Hilbert’s been doing it all wrong.”

“The cigarette.”

“You mean—that we share—um—together?”

Jacobi punches him lightly in arm, “Don’t play cute. I have seen your file remember. I know you went to boarding school _and_ a liberal arts college.”

“It is just. This seems like a bad life choice? Life is complicated enough on the U.S.S Lord Of The Flies without fraternizing- oh”

Jacobi poured himself into Eiffel’s lap.

“What about Kepler?”

“What about him?”

“Don’t you have a thing with him? Because it really comes off like a thing? And Kepler _doesn’t_ seem like a sharing kind of guy?”

“Kepler is… You know those death cults that end violently, and you wonder what was it about the leader, that he could convince his people to drink the poison kool-aid like little lemmings?” Jacobi filled his mouth with smoke

“That doesn’t answer anything.” Eiffel whispered before Jacobi cupped his face, and blew.

–

Before the Hephaestus there had been a lot of nights, sitting on friend’s uncarpeted floor, complaining about family, cheap food. Drunken, high, faux intellectual conversations about music, capitalism and the future. Everyone laying in a pile, girls with hungry eyes, and awkward boys while the ceiling fan turned slowly above, movie the hot city air and the smell of weed through the apartment.

The kind of shit that makes you feel young, and guilty, and uncomfortable, and together, and alive.

That what this was like. Only with the looming worry that one or both your commanders might strangle you for this sudden detour into degeneracy.

“To taking LSD at a music festival and waking up days later!”

“To bar fights!”

“Toooo, Oh!  To Eating slice of pie after gluttonous slice of pie until its hard to move.”

Jacobi chuckled, “That’s specific. Okay then. The smell of napalm.”

“In the morning?”

“Nah, in general, it's like bacon and oil burning.”

The tequila bottle had been set aside, mostly empty and the pair half sprawled on the bed, half floating a jumble of limbs. The toasts had continued unabated.

Eiffel felt warm, and the room had taken on that familiar churning feeling of being truly intoxicated, made more disorienting by the lack of gravity.

“To avoiding responsibilities by binge watching movies.”

“To getting a blowjob from some who _really knows what they are doing_.”

Eiffel rolled over to give Jacobi a scandalized look, but ends up grinning like an idiot instead, and suddenly they are both laughing uncontrollably.

Eventually it peters out to a few immature snickers and then a comfortable silence.

There are still looking at each other. Jacobi’s face is way too close.

“This is a bad idea” Eiffel said for what feels like the hundredth time tonight.

“It’s a terrible idea.” Jacobi agreed. “The worst idea.”

“Yeah.”

“We might totally die tomorrow.”

“Oh my god. That is actually so true though.” Eiffel groans. “It’s been a whole weeks since our lives were endangered in some horrifyingly bizarre way. We are due for it.”

And then it is hands, and belts and fighting each other for access to skin, and its good. Like really good.  They are both pushy and greedy and hungry for more. It has been so so long, and this is it. This is human bodies and nerve endings and heat, and the heady intoxication of smoke, tequila and sex.  This is just another method of self-destruction, but it’s real. He isn’t alone. And it is good  

—

Afterwards, when they are sticky, and trying to catch their breath, and feeling the start of a hangover Eiffel asked “What was that?”

“Hmm?”

“Was that just bored sex. Did you… Were you told to try to seduce me with your… your bag of debauchery? I mean. It worked. But?”

“Kepler want’s you on our side. He told me to go make friends.”

“Well, that _was_ friendly? But why?”

“You know the one thing your old crew has in common?”

Eiffel shook his head.

“They all want to protect you. Even if it’s just as a test subject. You are the connecting link for holding this rag tag team together .”

“That’s not… Most of the time I am a hindrance. I cause dumb accidents, and get in their way, and I am not really good at like anything useful.”

“You are pretty good at sucking dick.”

Eiffel rolled his eyes, “You are the worst.”

“Yeah, but you like it though.  And we never did get to play blackjack.”

“Tomorrow?”

Eiffel let out a breath he didn’t even know he had been holding in, and closed his eyes.

“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”


End file.
